Kip just pointed his ruined left hand at the Mirrorman and made that fire shoot back down, propping himself up on his good hand. Flame roared out and engulfed the man. He baked, his mirror armor useless.
Staggering to his feet, Kip threw more and more fire into the guards. And then he found out why Corvan had said he wouldn’t want to draft for a month when you were lightsick. His stomach boiled; he puked.
He couldn’t keep his feet. The dizziness and nausea dropped him like he’d been cut off at the knees. His stomach cramped so hard he bent in half, curling into a fetal position, still puking, splattering vomit on his own pants.
Once again, Kip the Charging White Knight manages to do nothing.
He was dead. He knew he had to be dead. The men had been charging at him and he’d killed at least one of them. They should have killed him by now.
“Let go of the rest of the luxin. It’ll make you sick again, but it’s better, I promise. Now, boy! I can’t carry you and draft at the same time!”
“Ironfist?”
Kip cracked his eyes open, saw dead men scattered around and Ironfist standing over him, his fists bearing spikes of bloodied blue luxin. Ironfist had cuts and dried blood and powder burns everywhere. He wore blue spectacles close to his eyes, the earpieces tied tight around the back of his head. His ghotra had been knocked off his head, and his hair was singed on one side. How had the man gotten away after commandeering a cannon? Surely the whole of King Garadul’s army had fallen on him.
Nonetheless, here he was. Bruised, exhausted, injured, but not so hurt that he couldn’t save Kip one more time.
“Now!” Ironfist demanded. “I’m lightsick myself. I know what I’m asking!”
Kip let go of the rest of the luxin and threw up again, his insides heaving, all of his viscera trying to rush out of his mouth.
But then, miraculously, he did feel better. Almost able to stand. Ironfist grabbed the shoulder of his shirt and lifted him bodily to his feet.
“Idiot boy, I did all this to save you, and you nearly throw it away. What the hell were you thinking?”
But Kip was in no state to answer.
He was staring at the army, back on the other dock.
Orholam’s balls.
A full-scale battle was being waged just two hundred paces away. Perhaps a hundred soldiers and drafters were holding the dock against thousands of soldiers and dozens of drafters. The confined space was all that kept Gavin’s men from being overwhelmed. The front lines were a mess of bayonets and swords, a few spears and hoes and scythes and long-handled orange limb shears and magic being thrown and blocked each way. Behind the front lines, Gavin and some other drafters were just finishing the last barge, unable to join the fighting because their drafting talents were needed for shipbuilding.
The mass of invaders was pushing Gavin’s men steadily backward, their sheer weight unstoppable. To Kip, it looked like they were already too late. And he was still sick, still dizzy, still feeling stronger than ever in his life, torn between wanting to lie down and feeling like he needed to go running or he would burn up.
“Follow me,” Ironfist said. “Stay as close as you can. It doesn’t float for long.”
With no more explanation—float? what was floating?—Ironfist ran straight off the side of the dock, one hand spraying blue luxin out in a wide stream.
Kip followed, charging down the slick surface, holding his pants tight in his left hand and praying he didn’t fall. The blue path dove off the end of the dock steeply and then leveled out at the water, floating on top of the surface like a very unsteady boat.
“Keep running!” Ironfist said.
In front of them, the defense was crumbling just as the great luxin barge pushed off the dock. The last remnants of the defenders were trying to fight and retreat at the same time. Some turned and were cut down as they tried to run to make the jump to the barge. Others abandoned the idea of making it to the ship themselves and stood their ground.
Lord Omichrome’s army, though, was so huge and had so much pent-up pressure that without a hundred soldiers pushing it back, it burst down the dock, the men behind shoving the men in front of them so hard and so relentlessly that both defenders and the front lines of Lord Omnichrome’s men were pushed straight off the edge of the dock. Dozens, perhaps a hundred men and women splashed into the bay.
We’re not going to make it. There’s nowhere for us to go!
But Ironfist merely turned his blue path over the waves out. By Orholam, they were going to run all the way out to the barge?
Kip couldn’t make it. He was too dizzy. It was too far.
“Faster, Kip! Damn you! Faster!” Ironfist shouted.
Water jumped up into the air to their right. Kip glanced that way, saw nothing, found himself running right along the edge of the blue path, almost falling in the water, and curved back. More water jumped to each side of them.
They’re shooting at us!
Lungs heaving, head swimming, in front of them Kip saw magic setting the air alight between the barge and the dock. Gavin was standing at the stern of the boat, throwing out great swathes of flame, darts, light grenadoes—a veritable artillery barrage of chromaturgy. A space cleared around him on the barge as everyone else shrank back, stunned, awed, afraid of anyone who could handle so much magic. Gavin was fighting all the drafters on the dock—by himself. And winning.
That’s my father. I can’t let him down. I’ve screwed up everything else. I’m going to get to that damned boat.
“I can’t keep this up,” Ironfist shouted, his voice strained. “I’ve got to make it narrower, Kip, or we won’t make it!”
“Do it!” Kip yelled.
The platform abruptly shrank to barely three hand’s breadths wide. It sank into the water even as Kip ran across it, his feet splashing water.
But they had only thirty paces to go. The path started arching up, out of the water to attach to the side of the barge, out of the way of all the magic going back and forth.
Kip looked up at Gavin, and saw that someone had stepped into the empty circle behind the Prism. Though the boy wore peasant’s garb, Kip recognized him instantly. Zymun! Zymun had snuck onto the barge with the rest of the refugees, and he was holding a box. Kip’s box. The last thing Kip’s mother had ever given him. The only thing she’d ever given him.
Gavin was still hurling magic and deflecting magic. Everyone was either watching him or had crowded to the side of the barge and was watching Ironfist and Kip come in. Ironfist was looking down at the path he was drafting, intent on the magic. Kip was the only person who saw a gleaming knife come out of that box.
Kip’s next step missed the narrow luxin platform. He plunged hard into the water. Clumsy Kip. Stupid Kip. His huge splash would make even more of a distraction for Zymun to take advantage of.
Lord Omnichrome had sent Zymun to assassinate Gavin. Kip had seen it—and he’d decided to go somewhere else. He’d had a dozen chances to do the right thing, and he’d missed them all. Even five minutes ago, if he hadn’t gone after Ironfist, he would have been on the barge. He could have stopped Zymun.
Kip wouldn’t fail again. He refused. He threw his hands down, opened his eyes despite the water, and starting sucking in light. It hurt like hell. He didn’t care. He sucked it in like he was the mouth of one of Gavin’s great skimmer engines. And threw it down.